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In Honor and Recognition of Geraldean Matthew

On Saturday, September 3, at about 8:30pm, the world lost a strong warrior in the struggle for social and environmental justice. Geraldean Matthew transitioned peacefully from this world to the next, leaving behind a lasting legacy in the lives of the countless people whose lives she touched through her dedicated and unselfish work in and for her community for more than three decades. Born in Belle Glade, Florida to a farmworker mother, Geraldean grew up as a young girl traveling the seasons up and down the east coast harvesting crops as varied as corn, cabbage, oranges, peppers and even Christmas trees in Southern Canada. Eventually, her family settled in the agricultural town of Apopka, Florida, where she remembers working in the vegetable fields on what is Florida’s fourth largest lake. The Lake Apopka farmlands are infamous for being the site of bird deaths and alligator reproductive anomalies due to the extensive amount of fertilizers and pesticides applied to the crops. Geraldean remembered being sprayed directly by pesticides and bringing home empty pesticide containers for various uses around the house – long before there were any regulations to train farmworkers about the dangers and health effects of pesticide exposure.

As a young woman in the late 1970s, Geraldean met the four courageous nuns who moved to Apopka and formed the Office for Farmworker Ministry to work with the largely African American and later Hispanic and Haitian communities in the area. That was the beginning of Geraldean’s education about the issues of social injustice and her becoming engaged in what would become a life-long work of making a positive difference in her community. Later, as a staff member of the Farmworker Association of Florida, Geraldean was known as fearless in her outreach to the HIV/AIDS community in Central Florida, leading the way into potentially dangerous environments if she knew there was someone in there who needed her help.

In the 1990s, when the Lake Apopka Farmworker Project was established at FWAF, Geraldean was at the forefront of efforts to help farmworkers displaced by the closing of the Lake Apopka farms to find re-training, new jobs, housing and assistance for their basic and immediate needs. Oftentimes, thinking more of others than of herself, Geraldean woke early to transport people to jobs miles away and worked late into the night doing outreach and education. Later, in 2005, she was the co-coordinator, along with anthropologist Ron Habin, of the Lake Apopka Farmworker Environmental Health Survey, which sought to identify the health conditions in the community of former Lake Apopka farmworkers and their experiences of pesticide exposure, (see the video here). A decade later, she was most proud of the Lake Apopka Farmworker Memorial Quilt Project, which she helped inspire, and of the book Fed Up: The High Costs of Cheap Food, by author Dale Slongwhite, which captured the stories of some eleven former farmworkers and community members.

In the last year of her life, as Geraldean was suffering the consequences of multiple chronic illnesses likely related to decades of direct and generational exposure to organochlorine pesticides, Geraldean Matthew told Fed Up author that they had at least two or three more books yet to write together; that she had many more from a lifetime of stories that still needed to be told. Sadly, those stories leave us along with Geraldean, as she moves on from this world to the next. Still, those Geraldean leaves behind have a wealth of stories of their own from a vast treasure of memories of working alongside Geraldean for years – at rallies and demonstrations; lobbying to decision makers in the state capitol; going door-to-door conducting a health survey; testifying at meetings and conferences, including at the EPA; speaking to countless church, student and civic groups about her personal life and the conditions for farmworkers; outreaching to AIDS patients in crack houses and on the streets; organizing meetings and community events; and motivating and inspiring others to get involved.

Geraldean may be gone, but her spirit lives on in all whose lives she has touched and by leaving the world a better place for her having been in it. We will miss you Geraldean. You are now free of the suffering of this world. May you be at peace and may your spirit soar free!

While a few short years ago a $15 minimum wage seemed like a moonshot, today municipalities and states across the country are standing with workers and adopting a minimum wage that will ultimately lift 35 million hard-working American families out of poverty.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration expanded overtime pay protections to more than 4 million working Americans.

And in California we are on the cusp on progress that builds on what the President has accomplished and paves the way for reforms that have the potential to put millions of working Americans on a pathway to the middle class.

Last week, California lawmakers passed first-of-its-kind legislation that allows farm workers to get paid overtime like all other workers.

Right now - in 2016 - a Jim Crow-era federal law excludes professions like farm workers, maids and domestic workers from overtime. Professions almost exclusively held by people of color. The fact that 78 years later that law is still on the books, prohibiting farm workers from earning a fair day’s wage for a fair day’s work, is reprehensible.

In 1938, it was passed to discriminate against people of color and all these years later it still discriminates, now predominately against Latino farm workers.

While we haven’t been able to change that law on the federal level due to Congressional inaction, states have the right to expand benefits. After decades of fighting to correct this injustice, we are close to righting an historic wrong.

The bill sponsored by California Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez that recently passed would gradually raise overtime pay for farm workers, requiring time-and-a-half for more than 8 hours worked in a day or 40 hours worked in a week. Farm workers who work more than 12 hours a day would get double pay.

It means a hard working mother or father who rises before dawn in the summer heat or on a freezing winter’s day and gets home well after the kids are asleep will finally get the pay they deserve but have been denied.

This isn’t controversial - it’s just fair.

The legislation didn’t pass on its own. Hillary Clinton was the first national leader to advocate for the change, Obama Administration officials, including Labor Secretary Tom Perez and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, have stood with us, as has Senator Dianne Feinstein and a diverse coalition of labor, immigrant, civil rights and social organizations.

Now the only remaining hurdle we have to clear to level the playing field for farm workers is Governor Jerry Brown’s signature.

If we can do it in California - the largest agriculture producer in the nation and the state that produces more than half of our nation’s fruits, vegetables, and nuts- it would be the latest example of the Golden State leading the nation in workers’ rights. It will yet again be a model for other states to follow.

Today, I’m proud to see our efforts bear fruit. As we celebrate Labor Day, farm workers in California rejoice the passing of this historic legislation. We’re almost there.

Together, we will continue to fight alongside our brothers and sisters as we work to open up a path to the middle class for farm workers and their families.

FWAF is honored as one of the two recipient of the eighth annual Food Sovereignty Prize

SEATTLE, WA, August, 31 2016 – The US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is pleased to announce the honorees of the eighth annual Food Sovereignty Prize: the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) and the Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF). The honorees were selected for their success in promoting food sovereignty, agroecology and social justice to ensure that all people have access to fresh, nutritious food produced in harmony with the planet.Lauded as an alternative to the World Food Prize, the Food Sovereignty Prize champions real solutions to hunger and is recognized by social movements, activists and community-based organizations around the world. The 2016 honorees are strident in their resistance to the corporate control of our food system, including false solutions of biotechnology that damage the planet while exacerbating poverty and hunger. Their programs and policies support small-scale farmers and communities, build unified networks, and prioritize the leadership of food providers, including women, farmworkers, peasants, indigenous peoples and other marginalized communities within the system.“Hunger is not a technical problem, it’s a political problem,” said John Peck, Executive Director of Family Farm Defenders and US Food Sovereignty Alliance member. “Small farmers have had the solution to hunger for millennia in agroecology and food sovereignty.”“The Borlaug and Gates Foundations and multinational corporations like Monsanto promote biotechnology because they profit from it. Ask the millions of farmworkers, family farmers and family fishermen feeding their communities what they need and they will tell you: access to land, clean water and their own seeds,” noted Diana Robinson, Campaign and Education Coordinator at the Food Chain Workers Alliance and US Food Sovereignty Alliance member.About the HonoreesThe Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) was founded in 2008 by a group of activist networks and launched in Durban, South Africa, during the 2011 alternative people's climate summit, organized to counter the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference Of the Parties 17 talks (COP17). AFSA brings together organizations representing smallholder farmers, pastoralists and hunter/gatherers; indigenous peoples; youth, women and consumer networks; people of faith; and environmental activists from across Africa. Together they advocate for community rights and family farming, promote traditional knowledge systems, and protect natural resources. In the face of increased corporate agribusiness interests threatening their food systems, including massive land and water grabs, the criminalization of seed-saving practices, and false solutions to climate change such as so-called "Climate-Smart Agriculture", AFSA unites the people most impacted by these injustices to advance food sovereignty through agroecological practices, policy work and movement-building efforts.Bern Guri, The Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa’s Chairperson, noted, “Africa has a myriad of ways to feed her people and to keep her environment safe. However, a few international corporations from the global North have generated approaches strictly for their own profit by misleading our leaders and our people, stealing our seeds and culture, and destroying our environment.”For AFSA it is clear that the way forward will allow food producers, supported by consumers, to take control of production systems and markets to provide healthy and nutritious food. Facing the many ecological, economic and social challenges in today’s world requires an urgent transition to agroecology to establish the ecologically sustainable, socially just and nutritious food systems of the future, and it can be done through the collective, inclusive and democratic co-generation of the knowledge held by farmers, consumers, researchers and African governments, who are meant to serve the interests of their (farming) populations.The Farmworker Association of Florida (FWAF), founded in 1986, has a long-standing mission to build power among farmworker and rural low-income communities to gain control over the social, political, workplace, economic, health and environmental justice issues affecting their lives. Their guiding vision is a social environment in which farmworkers are treated as equals, not exploited and deprived based on race, ethnicity, immigrant status, or socioeconomic status. As members of the world’s largest social movement, La Via Campesina, FWAF is building collective power and a unified force for providing better living and working conditions, as well as equity and justice for farmworker families and communities. This includes building leadership and activist skills among communities of color who are disproportionately affected by pesticide exposure/health problems, environmental contamination, racism, exploitation and political under-representation while lifting up women’s wisdom and leadership."Farmworker families pay the greatest price in the corporate food system of today. They work in fields of poison and exploitation so that people can easily access cheap foods,” explained Elvira Carvajal, Farmworker Association of Florida's Lead Organizer in Homestead, Florida. “We have a vision to bring together the community around the art of healing with good food and herbs, which is part of ourculture. We practice agroecology in the community by sharing the knowledge we bring from our grandparents, our mothers, our families, our ancestors. The meeting of cultures that happens in the gardens, where we grow our own food without chemicals, and sharing plants and traditions and knowledge across generations is a beautiful thing. I am proud of our own people practicing food and seed sovereignty."US Food Sovereignty Alliance members Community to Community Development and Community Alliance for Global Justice will host the prize for the first time in the Northwest, welcoming the 2016 Honorees and Alliance partners from across the country to Seattle and Bellingham for several days of activities and actions. The prize ceremony will take place on Saturday, October 15th at 6pm at Town Hall at Eighth and Seneca in Seattle.For event updates and more information about honorees visit www.foodsovereigntyprize.org, follow the Prize at facebook.com/FoodSovereigntyPrize and join the conversation on Twitter (#foodsovprize).###About US Food Sovereignty AllianceThe US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA) is a US-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based and food producer groups that upholds the right to food as a basic human right and works to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty. The Alliance works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies and assert democratic control over the food system, believing that all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced in an ecologically sound manner. Learn more at usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org.

FWAF JOINS BLACK LIVES MATTER MARCH AND CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

The event began Sunday evening at Alonzo Williams Park in Apopka, Florida, where some 150 people gathered in historically Black and farmworker South Apopka to support the neighborhood Black Lives Matter March. Along with many local residents, all ages and races of people - carrying signs and wearing black clothing - stood together in solidarity with the nationwide movement to stop violence against the Black community.

The event began with speeches by various community leaders. The director of Moms Demand Action spoke passionately about getting her organization off the ground with a simple text message chain, reaching out to mothers to come together to work for gun sense for America.

Speaker Carrea Gunn spoke about her SHE’RO and HeRo program that, through using a holistic approach supported by a team of volunteer mental health counselors, empowers young teens, aged 12-18, to lead responsible and productive lives by discussing relevant issues affecting today’s youth.

Pastor Darrell Morgan proclaimed that it was a message from God that inspired him to become involved in the BLM movement, and a representative of Minister Louis Farrakhan brought the leader’s message that the community must look to its roots for strength, unity and empowerment.

Along with the Farmworker Association of Florida was a contingent of supporters from FWAF’s sister organization, the Hope CommUnity Center in Apopka.

Marchers made their way through the heart of the South Apopka chanting “Black Lives Matter” and “Hands Up; Don’t Shoot” along with other chants. The event culminated in a candle light vigil, where marchers stood in memory of all the Black lives lost due to systemic racism and all committed themselves to stomp out racism and discrimination against all our Black Brothers and Sisters.

Solidarity With Victims & Their Families

The horrific shooting at Pulse in Orlando has left us all reeling- and heartbroken. The Farmworker Association of Florida deplores this act of violence. Our community in Apopka has lost cousins, children, and fathers, some of our dear friends luckily escaped with minor injuries. We are all heartbroken and trying to work through the surreal feeling that this happened to our community, and that so many lives were lost or changed forever.

We know the shooting happened during Pride Month, that there was Latinx Trans talent performing that night, and that the Muslim-American community is reeling from this tragedy along with the Latinx community.

This attack did not occur randomly; it was not aimed at the general public. It was aimed at latinx and queer people.

"At moments like this, we are doubly affected. We reject attempts to perpetuate hatred against our LGBTQ communities as well as our Muslim communities. We ask all Americans to resist the forces of division and hatred, and to stand against homophobia as well as against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim bigotry."- Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity

Equality Florida has further information on their page to access counseling and blood donation services.

Day of Peasants and Farmers Struggles – April 17th

April 17th is an important day in the struggle for food sovereignty. Twenty years ago, 19 members of the Landless Workers Movement (MST) in Brazil were killed during a peaceful action to obtain land for farming and other livelihoods.

Now, every April 17th, social movements and allies around the world mobilize actions and events advocating for food sovereignty and agroecology against the agribusiness model of food production. These actions and events engage the broader society in the process of transforming agriculture in order to end hunger, ensure the production of healthy foods, provide viable livelihoods, and fight for climate justice. As the international peasant movement La Via Campesina says, this is a day to “inspire us to continue to develop our work of denunciation and resistance.”

In this moment, we recognize the violence and the criminalization of grassroots organizations and movements struggling for a better world. Resource extraction and industrial agriculture – and the corporate greed and free-market politics supporting them – threaten solutions to the many crises we face. On this day of Peasants’ and Farmers’ Struggles, we honor the lives and work of activists who have been oppressed or killed defending land, water, and indigenous rights against transnational corporate greed and state violence. We also honor the lives and work of activists who continue these struggles.

On April 7th, MST members Vilmar Bordim and Leomar Bhorbak were killed in an attack by Brazil’s State Military Police and private security forces of the logging company Araupel, in an MST encampment on land that had been declared public by the Brazilian Justice Department. We honor their lives and struggle for land. We also remember the work of Berta Caceres, coordinator of the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH), who was murdered in her home for protecting indigenous lands and waters from destruction and pollution. We also mourn the assassination of Bazooka Rhadebe, Chairperson of the Amadiba Crisis Committee in South Africa, for resisting mining projects on their ancestral lands.

As members of the US Food Sovereignty Alliance (USFSA), we recognize that our current industrial food systems in the US are rooted in structural racism and colonization. We recognize the urgency and responsibility to confront the widespread influence of corporate agribusiness and transnational corporations, many of which are based in the United States. We reject this dominance by US corporations that often comes with political support for repressive and anti-democratic regimes. Within the US, we denounce the devastating policies that have exploited and repressed the working classes, people of color, native peoples, immigrants, and migrant laborers. We work to build solidarity with these communities in the US and across the world.

The United States is now the epicenter of industrial agriculture, and many rural communities are struggling to hold on to their land, their livelihoods, and their health. Over the past 80 years, disastrous free market agribusiness policies that push prices far below a farmer’s cost of production, as well as the spread of monoculture forms of agriculture that require heavy use of pesticides and technology to be economically viable, have left roughly 2.1 million farms in the United States, down from 7 million in 1935. There are as many as 3 million landless farm workers in the United States who face poor wages and are denied basic labor and human rights. Moreover, as older farmers retire over the next 10-20 years, up to 400 million acres of land are expected to change hands, with corporate agribusiness and the banks and investment funds financing them just waiting to acquire it.

The representation of the number of American Indian, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American and African-American farmers and ranchers shows remarkable resilience, growing at a faster rate than White farmers and ranchers (5%, 21%, 10% and 21% respectively, according to the USDA), and reversing earlier declines. Even so, these diverse groups combined operate only about 7% of the farms in the US, leaving 93% controlled by white operators. Additionally, even though 85% of fruits and vegetables are handpicked by millions of farm workers, the population of skilled farm workers, many of whom were farmers in their places of origin, forced out by bad policy in response to unfair trade deals, remain largely invisible.

In urban spaces, after decades of “redlining” and a long history of institutionalized racism and segregation in American cities, communities of color have been left with little employment, few services, and very limited access to healthy food. Now, mega real-estate developers are buying up land in these cities, displacing communities and literally uprooting the gardens and urban farms that communities created to ensure that families could eat.

The concentration of the commons into corporate hands extends beyond land to our waters as well. Fishermen are facing a rapid privatization and financialization of the fisheries as the “right to fish” is commodified and sold to the highest bidder, opening the floodgates to banks and corporations to buy up massive and exclusive control over the fisheries and the oceans.

On this April 17, the USFSA calls on its member organizations and its allies to organize actions and events for food sovereignty and food justice. At our 3rd Membership Assembly and 5th anniversary as an Alliance, the USFSA strengthened its commitment to building up the power of its grassroots and food producer member organizations in the United States – small farmers, landless farm workers, family fishermen, and urban gardeners – and strengthening ties of international solidarity around the world, to advance food sovereignty and food justice “in the belly of the beast.”

Members of the USFSA and the US Friends of the MST are organizing actions in New York City, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco, and Oakland on April 14th, 15th, and 18th, to push for food sovereignty and agrarian reform here and internationally, in solidarity with the social movements in Brazil and around the world. The US Food Sovereignty Alliance calls on its members and allies to organize demonstrations, public discussions and debates, film screenings, farmers’ markets festivals, and other actions of solidarity this April 17th. To share information about your action, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., and to learn more, visit www.usfoodsovereigntyalliance.org.

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The US Food Sovereignty Alliance works to end poverty, rebuild local food economies, and assert democratic control over the food system. We believe all people have the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food, produced in an ecologically sound manner. As a US-based alliance of food justice, anti-hunger, labor, environmental, faith-based, and food producer groups, we uphold the right to food as a basic human right and work to connect our local and national struggles to the international movement for food sovereignty.

Images credited to La Via Campesina.

FLORIDA STATE AND UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

FLORIDA STATE AND UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA law students stand on a dock at Lake Apopka, while learning about the effects pesticides have had on the lake and its various animal populations during this year’s alternative spring break event. The lake trip was part of a “Toxic Tour” throughout Apopka with the Farmworker Association of Florida during which the students learned about the history of pesticide use in Florida agriculture and its present-day effects on the agricultural workers and lands in Southwest Florida. The group also trained in Immokalee with Florida Rural Legal Services on various aspects of migrant worker law and met with the Collier County Sheriff’s Office Human Trafficking Task Force to learn about the current state of trafficking laws in Florida, and how law enforcement is using the law to catch traffickers and protect victims.

She was a courageous voice in defense of Lenca communities and the struggle for the rights of people and of Mother Earth. During her 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize Award ceremony, Berta shared these words:

“In our worldview, we are beings who come from the Earth, from the water, and from corn. The Lenca people are ancestral guardians of the rivers, in turn protected by the spirits of young girls, who teach us that giving our lives in various ways for the protection of the rivers is giving our lives for the well-being of humanity and of this planet… Let us wake up! We’re out of time. WE must shake our conscience free of the rapacious capitalism, racism and patriarchy that will only assure our own self-destruction.

“Our Mother Earth – militarized, fenced-in, poisoned, a place where basic rights are systematically violated – demands that we take action.”

Besides Berta, other leaders from trade unions and peasant, Indigenous and Afro-descendent organizations are frequent targets of death threats. We ask friends and allies to participate in local actions to demand a prompt and full investigation into the killing of Berta Cáceres. We call on everyone determined to uphold human rights to immediately contact their congressional representatives, advise them that the US support to Honduras and to the Agua Zarca hydroelectric dam project is destroying democratic rule in Honduras and killing innocent people, and demand an immediate end to such support.

Finally, we support the rightful demands of COPINH and of all Indigenous communities to protect and defend their lands and to prevent unwanted megaprojects in their territory, starting with the Agua Zarca dam project on the sacred Gualcarque River.

In solidarity,

The US Food Sovereignty Alliance, United States

Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, United States

Community to Community, United States

Food First, United States

Farmworker Association of Florida

Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project, United States

Quotes :

“For decades, Berta Caceres gave everything she had to the causes of true democracy; indigenous power; protection of the earth, the forests, the rivers; rights of women and LGBT individuals; and an end of tyranny by the US government, transnational capital, and Honduran oligarchy. Berta advanced these agendas not only in Honduras, but globally - most recently even in an audience with the Pope. Now, the one thing she did not freely give has been taken from her: her very life. But she is not gone; she lives on in all of us who continue to believe in and work for a just, humane, and ecologically safe world.” – Beverly Bell, Other Worlds

“The assassination of Berta Caceres is a tremendous loss to us, and to all communities who seek justice and dignity. And her murder is an indictment on an insatiable and immoral system – supported by US policies since the 2009 coup – that grabs ancestral lands from indigenous communities, poisons and privatizes waterways and seeks profit above all else. She stood courageously in the face of mounting threats, knowing the dangers, and with love in her heart, organized to protect the lands and waters of the Lenca people. We mourn with and call on the international community to take action, to bring justice for Berta and to work to continue her legacy.” – Chung-Wha Hong, Grassroots International

¨A Honduran friend who recognizes his Lenca ancestry called me today and declared: They have killed Lempira again. They killed the person carrying the banner of Indigenous Dignity the Highest, Berta Caceres. Lempira was the Lenca leader killed by the Spanish at the time of conquest. I agree: On March 3, 2016 Lempira Was Killed Again. I mourn for our collective loss and the loss of a beautiful, inspirational sister of supreme struggle.¨ - Stephen Bartlett, Agricultural Missions

“Berta was a tenacious leader. She worked tirelessly to bring indigenous and peasant families into international alliances to contain the greed of international capital for local resources. Above all, Berta was a dear friend and a sister in the struggle for many people in Central America and beyond. The loss of Berta Caceres is now our mística, the energy that will unify us and will sustain our struggle for a more just society.” – Saulo Araujo, WhyHunger

”At Grassroots Global Justice Alliance we are saddened and enraged by the murder of our compañera Berta. She stood up fiercely against her government and trans-national corporations, but always grounded in her love for people and the land. We will continue to live up to the example that she set to fight for land, for life, for dignity, and for happiness! The US government is as much responsible for her death as the people who invaded her home. We will not forget the fights Berta has been engaged in, Let's channel her strength and her courage to continue her legacy.” - Cindy Wiesner on behalf of Grassroots Global Justice Alliance

Opportunities and Threats to Immigrants in Florida's Legislative Sessions

WE OPPOSE TO:

CS/HB 9: Reentry into State by Certain PersonsSponsor: Rep. Carlos TrujilloThis bill would make it a third degree felony to re-enter into the state of Florida after having been deported from the U.S. This would be punishable by up to 5 years in prison and $5,000 in fines.

SB 118: Persons Subject to Final Deportation OrdersSponsor: Senator Travis HutsonThis bill would make it a first degree felony for a person who has an order of deportation to continue living in the state of Florida, which would be punishable by up to 30 years in prison and $10,000 in fines..

HB 675 / SB 872: Federal Immigration EnforcementSponsor: Rep. Larry MetzSponsor: Senator Aaron BeanThis bill is attempting to obstruct the power and authority of local governments to protect the civil rights of their communities; would force local governments and law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities at a level that is not mandated or funded by the federal government and may even turn school boards, administrators, teachers into immigration agents; would authorize the Attorney General to sue local governments and officials who do not comply, and would fine localities up to $5,000 per day for not enforcing the policies, and would make local governments vulnerable to civil cause of action for personal injury or wrongful death.

HB 563 / SB 750: Temporary Cash Assistance ProgramSponsor: Rep. Matt GaetzSponsor: Senator Travis HutsonSeeking to penalize mixed status immigrant families, the income of a primary member of the family, who is undocumented, but is not legally eligible to receive benefits must report their income in determining eligibility for the whole family. The impact of this bill would be decreasing the amount of assistance for the whole family.

HB 1095 / SB 1712: Prevention of Acts of WarSponsor: Rep. Lake RaySponsor: Senator Wilton SimpsonThis bill is meant to limit the access to resources of refugees and immigrants in the state. The bill would prohibit state, political subdivisions, agencies &employees, & persons receiving state funds from assisting refugees and immigrants. It would also require any of these entities offering assistance to submit personal identifying information of refugees and immigrants to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Furthermore, the bill would authorize the Governor and Attorney General to challenge federal laws and regulations encouraging refugee resettlement and directs the Governor and Attorney General to prevent entry into or resettlement in state of certain restricted persons.

Farmworkers at risk every day

Orlando Sentinel Letters to the Editor for February 8, 2016.

Farmworkers at risk every day

The incident of farmworkers being exposed to pesticides from drift in an aerial application on a farm in Belle Glade is only one of the more egregious cases of what happens on a less dramatic scale to farmworkers every day.

Contrary to some sentiments, farmworkers frequently experience less severe, but equally important, symptoms — skin rashes, headache, nausea, dizziness, vomiting — daily. The problem is three-fold: Many farmworkers are not aware that these signs may be related to pesticide exposure; health-care providers are not trained to identify these symptoms in their farmworker patients, and they do not generally take an occupational health history of their clients; and most farmworkers cannot afford to miss a day of work and/or they are too afraid to complain about their health problems for fear of being labeled a troublemaker.

This is not supposition or speculation. This is what we hear almost every day, every week at the Farmworker Association of Florida. In addition, chronic pesticide exposure can lead to serious long-term health problems, even learning disabilities and ADHD in the children of agricultural workers. Regarding workplace violations, farmworkers tell us all the time that growers will have workers clean up a site so that everything is in order when they know there is an inspector coming.

The current ugly anti-immigrant rhetoric today only exacerbates this problem. For everyone who eats, we need to thank farmworkers — documented or undocumented — for feeding us every day at the risk to their health.

STOP HB675 - STOP "TRUMP EFFECT"

Florida legislators are giving-in to the “Trump Effect” and attacking immigrant families by proposing up to nine (9) hateful laws that separate families and criminalize mothers and fathers.

This Wednesday, the House of Representatives will bring HB675 to a final vote, one of the worst of all the anti-immigrant bills.

HB675 is a Poli-Migra bill. It will make it mandatory for Local Governments, Police and Schools to enforce immigration laws, reporting and holding in detention immigrants ONLY for being undocumented.

HB675 will increase again the deportation of mothers and fathers whose only crime is to be undocumented, work to sustain their families or drive without a license.

HB675 will basically turn Police and Teachers into immigration agents. Immigrant families will fear calling the Police to report crimes or taking their children to school.

HB675 will for local governments to use our taxes to pay for this work because the Federal govt has not assigned funds to it.

Miami-Dade County Commissioners and Sheriffs in Broward, Hernando, Hillsborough, Palm Beach, Pinellas and Pasco Counties had already opted out of doing immigration work because it was wasting their resources in deporting community members and separating families. HB675 will make it mandatory for them to enforce deportation laws again and will allow the state to sue them if they don’t.

We expect our Lt. Governor and all the Latino Representatives to stop this bill and vote against it Representatives Jeanette Nuñez (Chair of the Legislative Hispanic Caucus), Rene Plasencia (Orlando) and Jose Felix Diaz (Chair of the Miami-Dade Legislative Delegation), will you defend your community?

We expect the Miami-Dade Legislative Delegation and its Chair, Representative Jose Felix Diaz, to defend their community and respect the leadership of the Miami-Dade County Commission who unanimously passed a resolution opposing this bill on January 20, 2016.

We expect (insert twitter handle for your Representative or statewide target) to defend their community and vote against #HB675 #WeAreFlorida

We expect @josefelixdiaz @RepJNunez and the @DadeDelegation to defend their community and vote against #HB675 #WeAreFlorida#MiamiDade Commissioners oppose #HB675. @josefelixdiaz @RepJNunez @DadeDelegation VOTE NO! #WeAreFlorida

FWAF traveled to Cuba for the V International Encounter on Agroecology, Sustainable Agriculture, and Cooperatives

From November 22 to December 4, 2015, 3 FWAF staff members, along with allies from El Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CATA), Centro Campesino, Why Hunger, Boricua, and Southeastern African American Farmers Organic Network (SAAFON), traveled to Cuba for the V International Encounter on Agroecology, Sustainable Agriculture, and Cooperatives, followed by a training on the Campesino-a-Campesino methodology, organized by the Asociación Nacional de Pequeños Agricultores (ANAP) and La Vía Campesina. In total, 255 delegated from 28 countries participated. FWAF's participation in the convenings was a continuation of the formation process to deepen our understanding and practice of Agroecology with farmworkers communities in Florida, a process which also involves other farmworkers and small farmers organizations that participate in the agroecology Encounter that FWAF hosted in Florida in February of 2015.

Thanks to our community

This holiday season we've been reflecting on past victories as we gear up for 2016. This timeline covers some our big highlights over the years. A more complete look at our history can be found under our three decades complete timeline. (three decades)

We have had such success because of support from our communities. So thank you to all our supporters and we look forward to more successes to empower and protect farmworkers in 2016 and for years to come.

(Paris, December 9, 2015) Nearly 200 grassroots activists converged and marched, chanted, and sang with colorful banners, posters and outside the Vincennes detention center in Paris where several immigrants are illegally detained by the French government.

The Vincennes detention center where grassroots communities gathered is of particular significance, as it was the site of an historic uprising after the death of a Tunisian man while in custody in 2008. This uprising brought national attention to the inhumane treatment of migrants and refugees in detention in Paris.

It Takes Roots delegates organized and participated in this march in solidarity with thousands of impacted refugees and migrants, detained by the French government. Local community leaders, members of la Via Campesina and activists working at the intersections of migrant and refugee rights joined our delegation.

This action was in deep solidarity with refugees fleeing situations of grave conflict, and made vital connections between migrant rights, Indigenous rights, gender equality, and climate change.

Key spokespeople at the march highlighted how social and environmental justice are deeply linked, and the largely US delegation expressed their solidarity with migrant rights, especially activists working with immigrant communities along the US-Mexico border, and Indigenous activists, who highlighted how colonialism is not really dead, but alive in new and dangerous ways.